Pulp fiction or Classic in the making?

"There's no biography so interesting as the one in which the biographer is present."

Orson Welles

I'm mentally preparing for this Sunday's sermon, which will be the final lesson in a four week series.

"Sermon" and "Lesson" are such archaic words that I find them daunting to add to a sentence in which I am described as performing a central role. I'm fine being described as a "writer" or a "spiritual bard" or even a modern retelling of the priests of the ancient celtic church. But I'm unwilling to be embalmed in the wrappings of modern christianity.

The topic of this week's retelling of our clan's oral history is called "Strength" in which I describe the belief that the originator of Robert J. Millar not only artistically crafted the physical form that is wrapped around my soul but also animated my life with a vibrant biography before I was born.

My life is not a pulp fiction short story and I'm beginning to believe it is perhaps a budding literary classic worthy of a place in even the most discerning of libraries. My place in that library is now assured, the space on the book shelf dusted and polished in anticipation of this work of literary art's arrival.

I have had an interesting life narrative so far. I think it is fair to say that I consider my biography to be more than mere pulp fiction that is carelessly cast away after distracting the reader during a tedious journey. I'm becoming enchanted with my own biography and I am now beginning to lean into the story. What will come next? I have also become engaged with the major characters, I wonder who will come into the story and fret about who will be tragically removed from the story. I have a fleeting sense of the biographer's antique fountain pen flitting across the parchment and coming to an abrupt pause as He considers a particularly interesting portion of the unfolding narrative. What was seen? Good? Bad? Hide behind my hands and peek out between my fingers in both excitement and childlike horror?

Then I see another cheap plastic ball point pen hesitantly flowing behind the author's ancient flowing pen. It occasionally scratches out the original masterpiece and replaces it with scribblings of substandard prose. The replacement script robs the whole of continuity and compelling construct. The rewriter is less assured and often retells the story without any sense of the whole. Assuming the sentence being written can stand alone, aloof from the biography's original story board blueprint.

I have become convinced my story is already written and my choice is to decide how faithfully I copy out the original biographer's handwriting as I live out a life story that has been told before I was born.

I have the capacity to be a literary masterpiece or a passing monstrosity of pulp fiction. I have told many stories in my life. Some retellings of ancient stories, others fresh from the mint of my creative mind trundling from their genesis to my lips and out into a world ready to be enthralled. But of all the stories I will tell throughout my life I think my own may well be one of the more compelling to myself.

I'm pausing this morning, chewing on a very well-chewed ball point pen, trying to decipher the author's intent in this particularly dark chapter and wondering if it would be better if I just changed it a little to add a little lightness to this conflicted part of the story. Surely a wee bit of frolic will take the sense of colic out of such a dark chapter?

But I pause.... I really don't want the only story in which I have a central role to become too Pulp Fictionally distorted......

What are you writing over the top of a masterpiece? Do you even accept the possible premise that there was a masterpiece written by another?

Final thought: I keep stumbling over the fact that the biographer of my story keeps appearing as a central character in the unfolding story. How to write a story of another in which the author is not only the genesis of the story but also a major character in this story?

Just a wee thought in the middle of the week to add creative juices to my fertile mind....